Word.ws English Dictionary

bacchanal

Syllables: bac·cha·nalUK/ˈbækənəl//ˌbɑ kəˈnɑl/

bacchanal adjective: relating to Bacchus or his festival.

Adjective (1)

bacchanal (comparative more bacchanal, superlative most bacchanal)

  1. Relating to Bacchus or his festival.
    • Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes / In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth, / Purple and gushing […]1819 July 15, [Lord Byron], Don Juan, London: […] Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, canto I, (please specify the stanza number)
  2. Engaged in drunken revels; drunken and riotous or noisy.

Noun

bacchanal (plural bacchanals)

  1. A devotee of Bacchus.
  2. Someone who indulges in drunken partying; someone noisy and riotous when intoxicated.
    • The riot of the tipsie Bachanalsc. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First...
  3. (in plural) The festival of Bacchus; the bacchanalia.
  4. Drunken revelry; an orgy.
  5. A song or a dance in honor of Bacchus.
  6. (Trinidad-and-Tobago, informal) drama, ruckus, fiasco

Adjective (2) capitalized: Bacchanal

Bacchanal (comparative more Bacchanal, superlative most Bacchanal)

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of bacchanal.

Forms of bacchanal

Adjective
comparativemore bacchanal
superlativemost bacchanal
alternative formBacchanal
comparativemore Bacchanal
superlativemost Bacchanal
Noun
pluralbacchanals

Origin of bacchanal

From Latin Bacchānālis (“of or pertaining to Bacchus”). See Bacchanalia.

Words formed from bacchanal

Questions about bacchanal

What does bacchanal mean?
Bacchanal means relating to Bacchus or his festival.
What part of speech is bacchanal?
Bacchanal can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce bacchanal?
Bacchanal is pronounced /ˈbækənəl/ (UK).

Words near bacchanal in the dictionary

  1. baccated
  2. baccatin
  3. baccatins
  4. baccer
  5. Bacchae
  6. bacchanal
  7. bacchanale
  8. bacchanales
  9. bacchanalia
  10. bacchanalian
  11. bacchanalianism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bacchanal (page history and authors); Bacchanal (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “bacchanal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bacchanal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.